Fumes

So, here's what my cube looks like after a lesson on the U.S. Airspace system...

Some of those markers are pleasantly-scented, and it left my cube smelling like a bowl of fruity pebbles with vodka poured over it instead of milk.  I need to go breathe clean air now.

What's an LSA? part 3 of 3: Six pounds of sugar

A few weeks ago, we got a visitor at my school who wanted to look at our LSA.  He was typical of such guys (see part 2 of 3), and when I walked him out to the ramp, he saw it from 50 feet away, beamed like a kid at Christmas, and said:

"Just like an old Cessna 150!"

Then, once he stuck his head in the door, he said:

"Oh.  Uhm. Whaa..?"

Technically, he's right on both counts.  It is like an old 150 in that it's a high-wing, tricycle-gear airplane with two side-by-side seats, and a single fuel tank in the fuselage.  And the resemblance ends there.


There's a family of single-engine trainers like that- Cessna's 150 and 152, the Piper Tomahawk, the Beech Skipper, the Diamond DA-20, the Grumman Yankee, and probably a few others (just don't get me started on the Tomahawk).   These things were mechanically simple, easy to fly, inexpensive, and strong enough to withstand plenty of students' "bounce-and-slam" landings.


None of those planes qualified as "Light-Sport" aircraft when the rule came into effect.  Not one.

It's not because these are large, powerful machines.  They're not.  They're way too small for lots of people.  But these planes all have a max takeoff weight between 1500 and 1764 pounds.  They were certified as Standard aircraft, so their takeoff weights are based upon how strong their airframes are. They have to withstand at least 3.8 G of stress without damage.


If that much load factor is too much for the design, then they have to either lower the weight limit, or build in more structure. These planes all weigh about the same because they were all built for the same job, and form followed function.


But, with the "Light Sport" airplanes designed since 2005, the Tail wags the Dog.  LSAs are limited by definition to 1320 pounds max takeoff weight, so that rule gets used as the limitation, instead of the real capability or strength of the machine.  That's the pickle that LSA pilots are finding themselves in:

They want a "real airplane" that's comfortable and easy to fly, and it should have a bunch of really cool features, an emergency ballistic parachute, a modern electronic cockpit, and it should be able to carry two people and enough fuel to get somewhere.

BUT:

Two American adults and 22 gallons of fuel weigh about 500 pounds, give or take. That leaves 820 pounds of airplane.  And that ain't a lot.

The Wright brother's first-ever airplane weighed 745 pounds, which was as light as they could get it, and they were only trying to lift one guy and a pint of fuel.  Sure, material engineering has come a long way in a hundred years, but it's not MAGIC.  As Scotty says, "Ya cannae defy the laws of physics!" A well-equipped, comfortable, capable two-place airplane should weigh about 1100 pounds, empty.  That puts its fully loaded weight... right around where the older generation of two-place trainers are.  Oops.


So the designers of new LSAs are left trying to stuff 1650 pounds of airplane into a 1320 pound bag. They're not having an easy time of it.  By the time the design is in the air, they've realized that something's got to give. Here are some options:

1. Skimp on extras, and go stripped-down, bare-bones.
2. Make it flimsy, to save weight.
3. Let the pilots do the math, so it's on them.
4. Cheat.
5. Give Up.
6. All of the above.

If you guessed #6, you're right.  No, seriously, all of these strategies have shown up in the recent wave of LSA designs.  And here's what's happened with each of them:


Option 1- "Skimp on Extras":  Some old designs which did qualify as LSAs are enjoying a rebirth.  Some of these things lack an interior, or any kind of electronics, or even padding on the seats. But those planes are very old-school, and they're not doing well in the marketplace against the candy-colored new designs. The American Pilot's appetite for shiny gadgetry always wins out over elegance, simplicity, and old wisdom.  The result is hundreds of nearly identical designs which all brag about the same features:

• "Advanced materials," especially carbon fiber and composite construction.
• Electronic Flight Instrument Systems and moving-map GPS displays.
• A ballistic parachute system, in case the thing falls apart in midair.

If you'll recall part 1 of 3 in this series, the "Observer Effect" of the LSA rule doesn't just describe an existing class of aircraft, it creates an entirely new niche that LSAs are being "designed into."  So, even though none of these features are in the FAA's "Light Sport" definition, they might as well be.  A Piper Cub doesn't occur to anybody as a "real LSA."  Option 1= FAIL.


Option 2- "Make it flimsy": These are not Standard aircraft, so they don't need to pull 3.8 G of force, and they don't have to go through testing for certification... so you can take a lightweight plastic box and call it an LSA.  New designs are underbuilt, and that's just a fact. Traditionally, getting an aircraft design approved is an expensive, punishing process, but none of these things have gone through that.  The FAA has taken a very hands-off approach to aircraft with E-LSA and S-LSA airworthiness certificates, which is why so many of them have come to market at once. So, if you're wondering how they can get away with selling $120,000 rattletraps made out of fiberglass and spittle, there ya go.  What, you don't believe me?  Try one and see... if you dare!


Other new LSAs are older designs certified at a higher weight in other countries, which have been stripped of structure.  That makes it possible to operate them in the LSA category, but it also makes them floppy. It's the same trick they tried in 1977 with the Piper Tomahawk, which (famously) didn't go well. They refused to do it with the DA-20, which will never be modified for use as an LSA, thank god.  Chopped airframes are another area where the FAA has abdicated its responsibility, so now that ballistic parachute option is looking pretty good.


Option 3- "Let the pilots do the math": Okay, let's say we've gotten the weight of the aircraft down to 900 pounds, and that's as low as we can go, until we can figure out how to make airplanes out of cobwebs and shadow.  That means we've got 420 pounds of useful load.  That's one guy, 24 gallons of fuel, and maybe another 110 pounds.  Unless your flight instructor is Callista Flockheart, you're going to have to take off with a half-empty gas tank, and just two hours of endurance. Urgh. This exact situation came up at a conference I attended two years ago. The LSA producer said "a typical training flight is only about 1.4 to 1.6 hours, anyway, so that's all you'd really need."   Again, I say, Urgh.


It used to be normal to leave some fuel back in the pump with traditional two-place trainers.  But, that was a very different situation.  First of all, we didn't need to leave that much fuel behind- I recall something like four gallons from full, at most.  Second, it wasn't a design issue, because Americans have gotten fatter!  If you were taller than 5'8" and weighed more than 180 pounds in 1960, you were a BIG guy.  And finally, the max takeoff weight of those aircraft was based upon the things' real capabilities and limitations, and you knew that you had to take the weight-and-balance limits seriously!


But with a new LSA design, people are paying lots of good money for a new airplane with a fairly roomy cabin with two seats.  If you're big, you're big.  And if you're going somewhere, you're going to fill up the tank.  And if you need to bring your golf clubs... well, you get the idea.  It's the pilots' responsibility to stay within weight and balance, but these guys know that 1320 pounds is an arbitrary limit. It will get as much respect as a 25mph speed limit on a divided, four-lane highway in a rural area.  At night.  In a convertible.  With the top down.


Option 4- "Cheat": The people who are making these new LSA designs know perfectly well that what I've just described will happen most of the time.  Flying overweight is illegal, but LSA pilots won't feel it's unsafe, and for them, it will be a normal operation.  Yes, the responsibility for keeping weight within limits is on the pilots, not the LSA's designers, but accidents are bad publicity!  So, if I was building an LSA, I'd put the real, operational weight limits WAY in excess of 1320 pounds.  Because I don't want my pilots to die, and cost me money, I'd make sure that my airplanes could handle 550-600 pounds of useful load, in excess of 4 G.  Of course, I'm not making LSAs, but the companies who do are willing to make 'em flimsy, so I don't know WHAT the real limits are.


But whatever they are, it's got to be a secret.  Admitting that the airplane could safely operate at more than 1320 pounds would kill its status as an LSA, which is the whole point of the design.  So the airplane owners are in the dark about the real weight-and-balance, and they're left to figure out for themselves how much they can "safely overload" the airframe.


All the Certified Flight Instructor parts of my brain are screaming "DON'T EVEN SAY THAT!!!"  Of course, you can't "safely overload" ANY kind of airplane- limits are limits!  But I'm sorry to say that for this new generation of LSAs, 1320 pounds is a lie, and everyone knows it.  Saying that max takeoff weight is based upon what the plane can physically handle simply isn't true- that argument is gone.  So, as a CFI, I'm left with  saying you've got to stay within the 1320 pound limit because "rules are rules." That's pretty thin. It's a 25mph speed limit... and no cops.


I wish I was making this up.  But at the 2010 Sun-n-Fun expo in Lakeland, Florida, I spent most of my time in the new LSA area, getting a feel for this part of the industry.  When I asked the vendors about the 1320 pound weight limit, I got this response:

• Shrug and wink,
• Assurance that "of course, the aircraft can easily handle more that that," and
• A promise that "the FAA has said they won't be enforcing that rule."

This happened FOUR TIMES.  If I'd been trying for a scientific study, I'm sure I could have gotten that same response from dozens of other vendors, but to tell the truth, I was so disgusted that I gave up.


Option 4- "Give Up": You may have noticed that I've avoided using any specific names of the new LSAs. That's because (a) I don't want to get sued, and (b) I don't want to badmouth anybody in particular when the whole industry is committing the same crime.  But I specifically commend and applaud Cirrus Design for a very responsible approach to their LSA- the "Cirrus SRS."  They suspended the project indefinitely in April, 2009.  Good Call!


The Cirrus SRS, like most of this generation of LSA, was supposed to be powered by a Rotax 912S engine, use composite construction, EFIS/GPS instrumentation, and their own proprietary CAPS ballistic parachute system.  It was also supposed to have a useful load of "at least" 500 pounds, and still fall exactly at the maximum limitations of the LSA rule.  To do the job, they acquired the rights to a German light airplane called the Fk-14 Polaris, and attempted to whittle down its speed and weight.  But when it came to Option 3, the fuel tank was a measly 18.6 gallons, eliminating an hour of endurance and at least 100 nautical miles of range in favor of more reasonable weight and balance.


I suspect that they pulled the plug for two reasons- First, they realized that they couldn't stuff six pounds of sugar into a five pound bag.  No "Cirrus" could ever be an LSA.  Cirrus has always been Over-The-Top when it came to airplane design- they're very fast, very heavy, very powerful, and packed to the gills with all the bells and whistles they can think of.  Twin turbochargers from Tornado Alley, the latest and greatest Garmin Synthetic Vision EFIS/GPS/FMS, integrated with a Forward-Looking Infrared camera, weeping-wing TKS de-icing system for the outside, air conditioning for the inside, and fold-away cupholders.  Cirrus putting its name on an LSA is like Hummer putting its name on a skateboard.

The second reason is because they realized they had nothing to gain with this product!  Cirrus has always been a premium aircraft company, and their target market has money to burn.  The guys who just have to have the "Best Of The Best" aren't interested in a "cheap" LSA.  Last week, I met a pilot who's just ordered his fifth Cirrus.  His name is Ken Griffey, Jr.  That's who's buying their planes.  These people want the jet!  So why get involved in the furball of the new LSA market?

Epilogue:  I did a flight review a few days ago with a guy who's been a pilot for more than forty years.  He's not small.  I'm not small.  We had 500 pounds of front-seat weight between us.  We went up in a 1979 PA-28 Piper Warrior.  It holds 48 gallons of fuel.  Our center of gravity was too far forward, so we loaded a 47-pound self-inflating life raft into the aft cargo area.  That made us weigh a bit too much, so we left each tank four gallons shy of full.  We flew for 1.7 hours and came back... and tied down in the wrong spot.  The tail rope had an orange rubber sleeve on it, which we use to protect the tail cone of the LSA we've got online, because that plane doesn't have a tail tiedown loop.  No, it's not broken, they just never put one on that plane. I pointed out that the rubber thing was on the rope because it was the LSA spot, and he said... "Ah, that LSA... now that seems like a nice plane..."

I suppose it didn't occur to him that we'd just enjoyed a useful load of 787 pounds in the Warrior, which would have been impossible in any LSA.  And, he hadn't seen firsthand what an airplane that only weighs 700 pounds looks and feels like.  He'd just felt nostalgic about the good ol' Piper Cadet he'd trained in (which isn't an LSA), and he'd read the press, drank the kool-aid, and momentarily stopped worrying about his medical.


Caveat Emptor.  True Light-Sport Airplanes have their place for enthusiasts.  The LSA rule, and the planes it's spawned, try to take it mainstream, but I doubt that their place has changed all that much.  And, I have to worry about the newer planes and older pilots who feel like the usual rules won't apply to them.

What's an LSA? Part 2 of 3: Drinking the kool-aid

Last week, I described some of the effects of the “Light-Sport Aircraft” rule: the FAA closed a regulatory loophole, and the aviation industry erupted with new activity. But the other part of the rule is the “Sport Pilot” Certificate, which carries fewer privileges but requires less of pilots who apply for it. That’s what we’ll be looking at this time.

The “Sport Pilot” certificate differs from the “Private Pilot” certificate in three ways:

1. It comes with some serious restrictions.
2. It requires fewer minimum hours.
3. It doesn’t require a medical certificate.

Everybody has pretty much ignored #1, and made a BIG DEAL about #2 and #3.  The FAA and the industry have said this makes flying "Easier" and "Cheaper," and that it “opens up aviation to a whole new group of pilots.”

That's what they're selling and that's what people are buying.  But I'm not drinking the kool-aid.  This doesn't make sense.

This particular kind of flying was unregulated before. You’d think that passing new rules would make it harder for would-be ultralight pilots, and that people would be less likely to take up flying tiny little machines.  Before the LSA definition and the Sport Pilot certificate, you didn't need any kind of training or medical certificate to fly an ultralight.

Of course, you'd be an idiot and you'd probably kill yourself if you tried, and everybody would think so.  That's why the buzz went the way it did.  With the FAA's ink on paper, "some fool in a dangerous contraption" suddenly becomes "Real Flying," even though nothing else may have changed.

Responsible people should know that's a crock.  Ink doesn't create safety.  Only Safety creates safety.  Safety doesn't care about ink.

So, if you think that the FAA's new rules suddenly make it okay to fly something like this, then you're an idiot.  If you built it, know how to fly it, and have been responsible about it the whole time, then you've got the right idea (and thanks to Donald Windsor for this picture).  The new rules should occur to you as troublesome paperwork that you've already complied with anyway.

So I'd like to take a closer look at the battle cry of the LSA crowd- that "Real Flying" has become "Easier" and "Cheaper" and is available to a "whole new group of pilots."

First, is it "Real Flying?" Was it "Real Flying" before the rule went into place?  The FAA 'approval' doesn't make it "Flying."  But the kind of flying that it is falls on the fringe.  These little birds are to other planes as jet-skis are to boats, or as scooters are to cars.  They're meant for recreation rather than transportation.  So it's not like the kind of flying that a Private Pilot with an Instrument Rating can do, and you shouldn't regard it as a reliable way to get around.

Second, has it become "Easier?"  Nope.  Ask around- Small aircraft are harder to fly than larger ones.  The idea that "small vehicles are easier than large ones" sounds good, but ten seconds of thought will change your mind.  They're much more vulnerable to weather, turbulence, and wind shear.  They lack pitch and yaw stability.  They're uncomfortable to sit in for more than about 90 minutes.  They lack the power to get you out of sticky situations, and they lack the mass to be comfortable with the power they've got.  And they are much harder to land, especially in crosswinds.

I've got a student named Paul, who's committed to LSA flying.  But once or twice, I've gotten him into a full-sized airplane, and upon landing, his reaction was "What, that's it?!?! That was easy!"  There is no doubt in my mind that his training would have gone faster if he wasn't trying to handle such a squirmy little plane.

It's true that the legally required training minimums are lower.  But that doesn't matter. If you're brilliant and work your ass off, it's also technically possible to finish high school in two years instead of four, and to have a college degree when you're seventeen instead of twenty-two.  But it's not reasonable to expect that. When it comes to education, it takes whatever it takes:

• Over the course of several hundred checkrides I've signed off since 2001, I've seen flight training come in at minimums exactly twice.  Both pilots were under the age of twenty, and still in school with well-developed study skills.  They did not have jobs, children, financial worries, or grownup responsibilities.  They'd taken on flying as a summer project, and came in to train five or six days a week.  You shouldn't assume that you can do the same, if you have a life.
• A Private Pilot certificate requires a minimum of 40 hours, and a lot of schools and instructors misleadingly quote the cost of a program at that number.  In reality, it takes about 65 hours, but I've seen several applicants come to me with more than 100 hours (spread out over the course of several years) in their logbooks.  Honestly, you should budget for 65-70 and hope to come in a little under that.
• A Sport Pilot certificate requires 20 hours, minimum, and excludes night flying, basic instrument training, and radio communications.  BUT, most airports where you'll do the training require the radio work anyway, most of the new LSAs have complex electronic instruments you'll have to master, and you're flying a tiny machine that requires more skill, not less.  I'll say you should budget at least 50-60 hours in the plane for that program.  You have to train to proficiency, not to minimums.

Third, has it become "Cheaper?" Probably, but only a little. The biggest factor is the number of hours you'll need, which may be slightly lower, but probably not by much.  The next factor is how much the plane costs to rent.  LSAs presently rent for about 85-90% of what you'd pay to rent a similar single-engine airplane.  However, I suspect the numbers have been juggled to produce that result:

LSAs have smaller engines, and burn less gas than other single-engine airplanes.  Since most planes rent on a "wet lease" (the cost of fuel is included), this means that the rental cost will be lower.

Another factor in the rental is the plane's "operating costs," which include maintenance, insurance, tires, oil, brakes, and other consumables. Most LSAs have smaller engines that run at higher RPM, generate more heat per square inch, and have more complex moving parts, so they require more oil changes and regular maintenance.  Their operating costs could be the same or higher than those of other airplanes.  These costs are going to be estimated too low, to get the rental price down.

Finally, the profit made on the rental should cover the cost of the aircraft over time.  Ideally, the plane should pay for itself and eventually become profitable.  Most LSAs are new designs that cost way, way too much for what you get, and they depreciate quickly.  They way they're built, they're also likely to wear out faster, and quickly become unattractive to renters.  That means it's not long before they start losing money, which puts upwards pressure on their rental price.

The result of all this is that a new LSA will cost $10-15 per hour less than an older, two-seat, single-engine standard airplane on the same flight line.  But, the LSA is struggling to recoup its sticker price, and its operating costs turn out to be higher than anyone thought, so it's likely to be losing money.  The older plane is cheaper and/or paid off, profitable, and likely to be available at a discount.  It's sitting there resenting the attention the newcomer has been getting.

And Finally, does it open up flying to a "whole new group of pilots?"  I really don't think so. Flying is something most people don't do.  Only 1 out of every 504 people in this country have any kind of pilot certificate (including student pilots). That number has been trending down since 1980, despite the fact that airplanes and avionics have gone through some pretty cool technological evolution since then.  I don't see why a large group of non-pilots, who had no previous interest in flying, would be tempted to start because regulation got tighter on more tiny little airplanes.

But there is one group of people that have made a lot of inquiries about the Sport Pilot certificate.  Almost all the interest I've seen in Light-Sport flying has come from older men who already are (or have been) pilots. From where I sit, this "whole new group of pilots" is not a "new" group at all, it's an "old" group that have mostly retired from flying, due to concerns about maintaining current medical certificates. There's a lot to be said about the medical not being required for Light-Sport, and most of it has already been said elsewhere.  I'd just like to point out two things:

1. The "whole new group of pilots" is code for "no medical."  There's language in the rule that prohibits pilots who've been denied a medical, or who have reason to believe that they would be denied, but the FAA and the flying community are very likely to treat this language with a wink and a nod.  Nobody expects enforcement.
2. This demographic sets up the LSA industry for a bust. There were more than 800,000 pilots in 1980, and I'm going to assume most of them were baby-boomers, and that many of them were part of a glut of military-trained pilots.  One reason the pilot population has shrunk is because these guys, now in their 60s, have been gradually aging out of the activity.  It's true that senior citizens are one of the fastest-growing populations in this country, and there may be as many as 150-200,000 pilots who might perk back up and fly LSAs for fun, but this number will continue to shrink as they continue to age and hang up their wings over the next 20 years.

It's silly to think that the regulatory environment will have more influence over the pilot population than all the other factors that shape our society.  The FAA pretty much turned its back on promoting aviation and became a regulatory agency.  The organization's culture is still locked into that mindset.  I don't think they understand that making a new certificate available doesn't make people want it.

What people DO seem to want are the spiffy new airplanes that have been created in the wake of this rule, and that's what I'll look at in part 3 of 4, next week.